Afterlife
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: Danny pleads with Steve to live. (see A/N for warnings; I guess this could also be considered a romance story with heavy angst)


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this.

 **A/N:** I don't write death fics. At least, that's what I told myself. I'm not a fan of them, at all. And then this happened. Never say never. I should know that by now. Thanks goes to Swifters, and csi_sanders1129 for reading this through. There could be a sequel (if the characters are cooperative, and if anyone is interested).

* * *

"For the record, being a ghost sucks," Danny said to no one in particular.

There were other ghosts wandering around him. All of them seemingly unaware of each other, aimless in their floating - none of their feet, not even his, touched the ground. Danny felt that he should be afraid. Or at least having a panic attack, because it had been days since he'd arrived at the hospital detached from his own body, wandering the hospital corridors, looking for Steve.

Needing to assure himself that at least one of them made it out of this alive. Someone needed to look after Grace and Charlie, make sure that Five-0 didn't fall apart just because he'd died. Danny had decided that that someone was Steve. Not that Steve wouldn't step in to fill the gap that Danny had left behind, but it couldn't hurt to have some voice of reason from beyond the grave, talking some sense into the man.

He was hovering a foot above the hospital floor, arms crossed over his chest, an unhappy scowl affixed to his face as he paced - floated - the corridor outside of the room that he'd watched Steve - it had to be him, though it was hard to tell who was under all of the gauze and machinery - had been wheeled into after undergoing emergency surgery. The man had been covered head to toe in gauze that was tainted with a sickly reddish hue in spots, and attached to numerous machines that beeped and whooshed.

For some inexplicable reason, Danny, in his ghost form, could not penetrate this one door in particular. He'd tried hosts of other doors, and met with success, but room 415 kept him out.

He was able to float through almost everything else, including walls and people, but the one place that Danny needed to go to was apparently off limits, which was not fair. It was bad enough that he had died in the gunfight that Steve had barely survived. The fact that he was no longer attached to his body, but floating around the hospital dressed in a white cable-knit sweater, khakis, and a comfortable pair of fuzzy blue slippers was proof enough to Danny of his untimely demise, though the afterlife was not at all what he'd expected it to be. He didn't see a bright light, for one, and he couldn't gain access to the one place he wanted access to.

Funnily, or maybe Danny had his adverbs messed up, and it should be sadly, enough, Danny didn't feel afraid, didn't miss Grace or Charlie, or the future that could've been had he lived. Which was odd. He felt he should miss those people, those things. He should want to leave the hospital and check on his children. Become their guardian angel. Instead, he felt the need to stay put, to watch over the man who'd been wheeled into room 415. It didn't make sense.

His regrets, though he had many, and they _should_ be haunting him, were not hanging over his head. He felt free of the things which had often kept him up at all hours of the night when he'd been alive. They mattered, and yet...they didn't. It was an eerie feeling, not having the burden of his regrets resting solidly on his shoulders as they had for years.

Things like: not giving marriage counseling another go; not shooting his baby brother when he'd had the chance, saving Matty's life in the process; not having enough courage to kiss Benjamin Whatshisname under the bleachers at some lame middle school dance; not telling Steve that he loved him...

Danny remembered these things, and more, as he hovered outside of room 415, unable to gain access, even when the door was opened by one of the living, or transgressed by another ghost like himself, a ghost tethered to the plane of mortal existence. It was like there was an invisible barrier keyed only to him. A Danny-barrier. As though the man lying in there needed protection from him.

"He's in a coma. He's still got a chance," Chin said, head bent toward Kono as they walked down the corridor toward room 415.

"He needs to wake up. We can't lose _both_ of them," Kono's voice broke off with a sob, and Chin pulled her close, offering her what little comfort he could.

Danny, feeling a pull toward his friends, frowned at the words, tried to sneak past the barrier, carried along in the wake of Kono and Chin's footsteps when they entered the room that his friends had disappeared into. Danny bounced off the invisible barrier, and rubbed at his nose, though it didn't exactly hurt. It was an odd sensation. He felt he was being pulled in two directions. One was toward Steve, the other toward something else. It was confusing.

He settled for waiting in the hallway outside of the door, watching the comings and goings of both the living and the dead, catching bits and pieces of conversations that were taking place around him.

He felt lost.

Alone.

Lonely.

Like he was missing a part of himself.

"Steve is in a coma, and I can't even sit with him?" Danny cast his eyes toward the ceiling, wondering if God really was up there, and if so, what the big guy was playing at, keeping Danny here and not letting him go to Steve.

Danny sank down to the floor, legs kicked out in front of him. Even then, he didn't actually touch the floor, but hovered a few inches above it. People walked past him, through him, and he felt nothing. They felt nothing.

"It's such a tragic story," one nurse - a beach bottle blonde - said to another as they passed through Danny's legs. She inclined her head toward room 415, and both nurses paused in their steps. Danny leaned closer, because, other than that little tidbit from Chin and Kono, Danny had no idea what was wrong with Steve, and he was hungry for information about his best friend, the man he'd willingly gone to hell, or purgatory, or whatever this place was, for.

"I know," the other nurse - a curvy redhead - agreed, nodding, lips turning downward in pity or sorrow. It was hard for Danny to catalog.

She was standing smack dab in the middle of Danny's left calf, feet shuffling, and Danny reached out to touch her, his hand sliding right through her ankle. The nurse shivered and turned her head, looking directly at Danny, blue eyes piercing his. Danny opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it when her forehead wrinkled in confusion, and she shivered again, and then looked away.

"Sometimes I get the oddest feeling in this place," the redhead said.

"Like you're being watched?" the blonde asked, nodding as though both of them were already in agreement about the odd feeling.

"Yeah, except..." the redhead trailed off, and glanced behind her once again, eyes looking directly into Danny's, but seeing nothing.

Danny sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest. "This sucks. Not even the perceptive ones can see me."

"Did you hear that?" the redhead asked the blonde.

Danny perked up, leaned forward, hopeful, itching for some kind of human contact, someone who could give him more information about Steve. Someone who might hear him.

The blonde shook her head, and laughed. "You've been listening to the rumors, haven't you?"

The redhead blushed. "It's just...sometimes this place gives me the heebie jeebies. Don't you believe in ghosts?"

Snorting, the blonde shook her head, and Danny's mouth twisted. He remembered having felt the same way, discounting supernatural events and beliefs with a smugness that had cost him dearly, and hadn't endeared him to the natives of Hawaii.

He wondered if the fake blonde would continue on in her unbelief as he had. If she'd blatantly disregard the signs and sensations her counterpart seemed to readily accept, or if she, too, would come to accept that, not only was this hospital haunted, but so was a large portion of the island of O'ahu. Danny had, even before he'd become a ghost. He was stubborn, sometimes to a fault, but he'd learned that there were events that could not be explained in any other way.

"I think ghosts are a figment of people's imaginations. A way for people to cope with their loss, and keep memories of their deceased loved ones alive," the blonde said. "They can't let go, so Aunt Ruthie, or little Johnny, becomes a ghost."

The redhead shook her head, but didn't counter the blonde, and Danny felt as though he'd lost something in the exchange. Having one person, even if it was just a gossiping nurse, on his side was better than having no one.

"I suppose you're right," the redhead said. Danny waved a hand through her leg, watched as goosebumps rose on her skin and she rubbed her arms as though she'd gotten a sudden chill. "It really is too bad about the shooting. I heard that they were close, the two men who were shot."

"Like brothers," the blonde nurse said, nodding sagely.

Danny wanted to reach up and strangle her, because Steve and he had been more than brothers, and she didn't know fuck about their relationship. She wasn't even a real blonde.

"I heard they were like an old, married couple," said the redhead, smiling sadly.

Suddenly feeling claustrophobic with the nurses standing between (and in) him and room 415, Danny shoved at her. She didn't budge, though she did shiver, and cast another glance in his direction before shaking her head, and turning back to her colleague.

 _Code blue to room 415._

The alarm rang throughout the corridor, lights flashing, and the nurses gasped as they both turned toward the door that was off-limits to Danny, pushing through it, giving Danny, who'd stood, and pressed himself up against the invisible barrier, a brief glimpse of the chaos within.

There wasn't a portion of the body lying on the hospital bed that wasn't covered in blood splotched gauze, or attached to some kind of equipment that was supposed to monitor his vitals. They were going haywire, though, and Danny felt a pull behind his navel, as though he was a yo-yo at the end of its string being pulled back to the hand that held it, even as he felt a push forward. He gave a brief thought to who might be holding that yo-yo, thinking him or her cruel in the extreme as he was once more cut off from the body lying on the hospital bed, the machines screaming out the man's struggle to survive.

"Live, Steve, don't you fucking die on me!" Danny shouted as he struggled against invisible hands that held him back. "You have to look out for Grace and Charlie. You have to live, god-dammit, McGarrett. You have to live."

Danny fought the hands that tugged at him, but they were stronger, better equipped for ghost fights. They kept him from moving toward the barrier, from watching the battle being waged in room 415. Danny knew, from what he could hear, that the doctors and nurses were losing it, losing the man lying on the hospital bed.

His chest ached, and he felt the electric shocks run through him, as though it was he who was being worked on, rather than the body in the room. It was confusing, and Danny didn't know what to make of it. Didn't understand why he felt what the body in the room was feeling so keenly, other than he'd loved Steve, and it hurt to see what was happening in the room. Hurt to see the loss of such a battle.

He could see the loss in Chin and Kono's bowed heads as they were all but shoved from the room. The slump of their shoulders, the wrecked sob that was torn from Kono's throat as she buried her face in Chin's chest and wept.

Danny wanted to go to them. Wanted to tell them that it was all a mistake, that Steve was a fighter, that he would return to them, but he felt as though he was being held tightly against someone's chest. Felt the press of a stubbled cheek against his ear. Warm breath against his neck, across his collarbone. None of which should be possible, because he wasn't alive.

"Danny," the voice was hoarse, hushed, pained, and Danny felt it reverberate through him. "Danno, c'mon, it's time to let go."

Danny shook his head, pushed at the arms that bound him, and even though his hands didn't ghost through these arms, they were just as ineffectual. "No," Danny said. "No. It's not time to let go. It's _not_ time."

"It's time, Danno," the voice broke, and Danny sagged back against a chest that was warm, and solid, and real. "I'm sorry about this."

"Then don't do it," Danny said, desperate, pleading. "You can still go back."

"I'm not going anywhere, Danny. It doesn't work that way," Steve said.

"What do you know about what will and won't work, huh, Steven?" Danny asked, pushing at the immovable arms, staring cross-eyed at a tattoo he knew well. If only he could jam an elbow into Steve's gut. Ghost or not, surely that would work.

"Because, Danny, I've spent the past three and a half days wandering this fucking hospital, looking for a way to reach out to you. A way to bring you back," Steve said, voice harsh, arms tightening around Danny like an over friendly boa constrictor.

"But you -" Steve's voice cracked, and he shook Danny, hard. "You stubborn son of a bitch, parking your ass outside of this room, refusing to return to your body because of me. You stubborn son of a bitch..."

Danny blinked past a sudden onslaught of tears. Could ghosts cry? He shook his head. Tried to push Steve off of him. "Are you saying...is this..."

Guilt crushed him.

Danny's eyes focused on the door, the numbers 415 emblazoned on it, the sound of the sirens cut off, doctors and nurses left, heads hung, Kono sunk to her knees, Chin with her, and Danny would have fallen too, had it not been for Steve holding him up.

"My fault," Danny whispered. "Oh, god, Steven, I'm -"

A hand clamped over his mouth, silencing him, and Danny was turned around to face the man he loved, though he'd never really told Steve that, not in so many words. He'd always just assumed that Steve knew how he felt, that the man could see the truth beneath his bluster and his actions, like he could Steve's.

"Shut up, Danny," Steve said, eyes dark and swirling with emotion.

He was wearing a dark green cashmere sweater, black cargo pants, and was barefoot, and even though he bore several days' worth of stubble, he looked like he'd walked straight off the page of a fashion magazine. Steve wore death well, and Danny tried to get his mind focused, to think of something other than how good Steve looked, how casual, and relaxed, and comfortable. How at peace he looked. And that's when it hit Danny. Now that Steve was dead, he no longer held the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was a bittersweet revelation. The cost much too high. Of the two of them, Steve should have been the one to survive.

"I was already dead, Danny. I took a bullet to the brain. I've been dead for the past three and a half days. That was _you_ behind that door," Steve said.

Danny blinked, tried to understand what it was that Steve was telling him. It couldn't be true. He'd watched the body as it was wheeled into that room, had felt a connection, but hadn't been able to act on it, because he'd felt like he was being pulled into two different directions, and the one thought that kept him sane as he'd come to terms with his less than physical existence, was Steve. He'd needed to stay with Steve. That was his one controlling thought, and he'd held onto it like the lifeline that it was.

" _You_ , you were the one who had a chance, and you...god, Danny, you blew that chance on me." Steve was cupping Danny's face, rubbing a thumb along Danny's jaw, and Danny marveled at how soft and warm Steve's hands were. How alive he felt. How Steve's eyes shimmered as though they were jewels.

Danny shook his head. "I didn't -"

"No, you didn't," Steve interrupted. "You know, for all of that crap you gave me about being a stubborn Navy SEAL who puts the lives of others before his own, you were just as bad, Danny. Worse."

"So, you're saying that...but Chin said you were in a coma."

Danny was trying to wrap his mind around what had happened. He didn't remember even seeing his own body, just honing in on Steve, and trying to get to his partner, the man he loved, before it was too late. Before he'd lost him. In Danny's mind, it hadn't worked, and it hadn't been days, but mere hours since the shooting that took his life, and now Steve's. The thought that it could've been him on that hospital bed was unfathomable. Nonsense. Why would he be kept away from his own body?

Time had ceased to have any true relevance the minute he'd set foot outside of himself, and into this other plane of existence where he could walk through walls, and people. Where he could float several feet above the ground if he wished to.

"They were talking about _you_ ," Steve said. "Only you were too blind, and stubborn, to see it, Danny."

Danny felt dizzy, and only spared a brief thought as to why, as a ghost, he could feel dizzy. Surely what Steve was telling him couldn't be true. He'd tried to get into room 415, but had been bounced back each and every time. Had it been because he'd only been thinking of Steve that he'd not been allowed to return to himself? That didn't make sense. Did it?

"I tried," Danny said. He was shaking with the revelation that it had been him behind that door. He was not willing to believe it just yet, though he knew Steve wouldn't lie to him. He'd been so certain though. So sure that it was Steve that had been in a coma, and not himself.

"You didn't try hard enough," Steve said, unforgiving, fingers tightening, almost painfully, on Danny's jaw. "As long as you kept thinking about me, on staying with me, on trying to achieve the impossible, saving a man who was already a ghost, you couldn't move on. You couldn't _live_."

Danny shook his head. Not believing Steve, even though part of him knew what his partner was saying was true. He would have felt a pull to his own body, wouldn't he have? Would've recognized himself, even under all of the gauze and the blood, the wires that attached him to way too many machines that were designed to monitor and keep someone alive.

"No," Danny said, pushing against Steve's chest, needing to get some air, though he no longer needed to breathe. "I..." He closed his eyes, didn't resist when Steve pulled him close and held him. There was no heartbeat, just a solid warmth.

"I'm sorry," Steve said. "I tried to reach you before it was too late, but you didn't hear me, or see me, and, god, Danny, I _wanted_ you to live. Wanted that more than anything in the world."

"Then what was that nonsense about not going anywhere? About it being time for me to let go?" Danny asked.

He'd thought it was Steve in that room. Had believed it with every fiber of his being, such as it was. Nothing added up. None of it made sense. Had he really been held back by an erroneous belief that Steve was still alive, that he couldn't leave him until he'd known that Steve would live? That, underlying everything else, Danny _hadn't_ wanted to live without Steve by his side?

"It's _not_ nonsense, Danny. There's no one I'd rather spend my afterlife with than you," Steve said, and Danny felt an electric jolt as lips, warm and gentle, yet firm, touched his own. "I'm not happy that you chose me over living, but I'll be damned if I lose you now."

Danny's hands moved to Steve's shoulders, and they kissed, oblivious to the world moving on around them, without them. He felt safe and secure; ready for whatever the afterlife had in store for the two of them.


End file.
